In a document revealed in a lawsuit by the ACLU, the Bush administration outlines its strategy for organizing squads from “college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities” to provide a supportive backdrop and counter any protesters encountered where George W. Bush goes:
There are several ways the advance person can prepare a site to minimize demonstrators. First, as always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferable not on view of the event site or motorcade route.
The formation of “rally squads†is a common way to prepare for demonstrators by countering their message. This tactic involves utilizing small groups of volunteers to spread favorable messages using large hand held signs, placards, or perhaps a long sheet banner, and placing them in strategic areas around the site.
These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad’s task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!,USA!,USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators form the event site. The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities.
For larger rallies, the squads should be broken up into groups of approximately 15-25 people. A squad should be placed immediately in front of the stage, immediately in forgot of the main camera platform, close to the cut platform, immediately behind the stage area (if people are being used as the backdrop), and at least one squad should be ‘roaming’ throughout the perimeter of the event to look for potential problems.
Stick them in a corner. Shout them down. If that’s not enough, shove them out. Problem is, the them is us.
(Source: American Civil Liberties Union)
Wait a minute. Is this a memo instructing the federal government to organize such anti-protester squads?!?!
This is like the Nazi brown shirts.
I was also wondering who this was directed too; but it is still infuriating. Free speech? Yes, of course! Merely please show your Gathering permit, your ID card, kindly step into this fenced and armed guarded area 5 miles from the protest site, sign this waiver form for any photos taken of you, submit to this full cavity search, and also agree not to talk to the media or any representative of the King, oops, I mean President…
They’re Bush administration advance teams, so in that sense they’re the government — but to clarify that this isn’t something coming out of, say, the FBI, I’ve reworded the title.
When George W. Bush goes to these events, they get televised, and what the television shows is an adoring crowd. That is a bullshit facade created by the Bush Rally Squads, for whom appearance seems to matter more than freedom.